Welcome to the CPSR Y2K Working Group
Homepage. This web site is provided by CPSR as a public
service. CPSR believes that governments and organizations
worldwide must immediately address the very serious
threat posed to individuals, organizations, governments,
and economies by the Year 2000 computer problem, a threat
that could disrupt our economic and social systems.

The Y2K Working Group uses this site to
promote year 2000 awareness, mitigation, contingency
planning, and preparedness. In particular, we seek
to speak and act for the segments of society which do not
have extensive resources or organized groups to speak for
them. We seek to foster a sense of urgency at all
levels local, national and global, while helping the
public and the media understand and prepare for the
impact of the Y2k problem.

Finally, we urge
government and business leaders to step up to this
challenge and provide leadership, education, and
prevention.

Our Y2K
Survival Guide is
designed to be useful to small business, local government
and individuals, and it features the CPSR Introduction To
Disaster Recovery Planning, the CPSR Year 2000
Action Plan, and the CPSR Guide To Picking A Consultant.

In the early
years of computers, data storage space was at a premium,
and to save space the date was written using two digits
to represent the year. For example, the character string
'63' would be used to represent 1963. Many of the older
computer systems which remain in use today still have the
two-digit date code. The problem arises when an older
computer system tries to use the year 2000 date because
it thinks the date is 1900, not 2000. This misreading can
potentially cause serious problems, the extent and scope
of which are not fully understood.